July 8th

Videogames and VR are often described as “empathy machines” – and though that term was first used for cinema, the idea today is often that newer mediums are more immersive, and therefore more empathetic, than those that came before. But what does empathy actually do? What about the many other ways videogames can have us relate to other people’s struggles, or to our moral obligations? This week many writers took on questions about feelings and ethics. We also have writing on interactive storytelling and diversity – it’s all here in the roundup of This Week in Videogame Blogging!

Drill those fingers

First, these two pieces look at creative uses of interactive systems to build meaningful experiences.

“In bullet-hell, tactics, and life, man plans and god/nature/the universe laughs. You can drill those fingers or try to anticipate every possible outcome, but in the end we are flawed beings living at the whims of the cosmos.”

Love and hate

This was a great week for reflections on games and the history of art, or art about history.

Where are the Radical Politics of Cyberpunk? – Waypoint Cameron Kunzelman takes this piece into a slightly different direction to what I was expecting, not just rehashing arguments about cyberpunk having lost its way, but points to its origins in the formative years of contemporary amoral individualism.

“It’s so much easier to fight about canonicity and the “right” version of the genre that we love than to confront the fact that maybe its origination point is one that disempowers us”

Empathy

We had a bumper crop of articles about how morality is linked to empathy in interactive media, in part thanks to a week on the theme hosted at Real Life.

Empathy Machines — Real Life Olivia Rosane argues that simply being able to imagine someone else’s plight does little in the face of oppressive structures that shield the powerful from most of the harms they inflict on others.

“The sensibility era’s novels served as testing devices: If your heart didn’t respond, your moral sense might just be weak and you might not be as moral as you hoped”

Tragedy

Looking further at the morality of emotions in games are these two pieces on addiction and abuse.

The Truth About ‘Video Game Addiction’ | Kotaku Cecilia D’Anastasio talks with sufferers and experts about gaming addiction, and surfaces some compelling reasons why it has become a diagnosable disorder despite often being linked with other illnesses such as depression.

Don’t Mention The Bruises – Timber Owls Lilly argues that important truths about the nature of abuse are too often cast aside in favour of traditional narrative structures in works such as The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit.

“It’s a major problem with these narratives that they don’t seem to properly consider the feelings of the victim or the long-term repercussions of familial abuse. […T]he people genuinely affected by it are sidelined in order to tell a traditional tragedy.”